5

5Parks are an im­por­tant part of Oslo’s land­scape, and a num­ber fea­ture art in­stal­la­tions by in­ter­na­tional and lo­cal artists. A ten-minute drive from the mu­seum, in the north-eastern sub­urbs, is one of the most no­table, Vigeland Park, which is the world’s largest sculp­ture park by a sin­gle artist.

Cre­ated by Nor­we­gian sculp­tor Gus­tav Vigeland in the 1940s, the park en­com­passes 32 hectares of land­scaped gar­dens and lakes, strewn with more than 200 gran­ite, bronze and cast-iron sculp­tures of hu­man fig­ures, por­tray­ing dif­fer­ent stages of life. The most ar­rest­ing is a mono­lith of stone-carved bod­ies, knot­ted and clam­ber­ing over one an­other, to­ward the pil­lar’s high­est point. It’s an in­tense, even un­set­tling sight, but it makes for a stunning photo. Free en­try; No­bels Gate 32; vigeland.mu­seum.no